They stared at Robin Williams’s house silently for a minute, then continued up the peak. As they broke through a closed-in patch of bushes, thorny branches scratching against their shoulders and arms, Bill burst through labored breaths, “We made it.”
Christina had to admit it was spectacular at the top. She turned and viewed mountains at every angle while Bill caught his breath, Kong dropping down next to him. The sky was a pristine blue, no clouds in sight. And the same trees she’d been walking next to for the last forty-five minutes, the ones that had huddled together as a team of branches waiting to poke her, had turned a rich, roasted color, and suddenly seemed exotic under the direct sun. She breathed in deeply and took in the sun on her face. Wrinkles be damned, she thought. Skin cancer, too. I just climbed to the top of a mountain.
“It’s glorious, isn’t it?” said Bill. “Come on”—he reached out his hand to hers and she took it—“let me show you around.”
He showed her the stone circle formations surrounding a stubbly pine tree. “I think the feminists made them. Probably some sort of strange ritual,” he laughed. Then he walked her to the land that bordered his property, separated by a fierce-looking fence. “I wouldn’t touch it,” he said. “It’s probably wired.” He pointed out a ghost vineyard, abandoned twenty years previous by a prominent winemaker. The quality of the grapes had just not been worth his time. He sold the land, and it had since been sold thrice over. The vines were unruly and sagging, and the rich green color, so prominent in Bill’s vineyard, was absent, sapped by the sun and lack of water.
“And then this, now this is the best part,” said Bill. He led her and Kong back up to the peak and then through some bushes into a grove of manzanitas. The empty space beneath the trees was small—they both had to hunch slightly—but wide, so they could move freely beneath the peeling trees and their outstretched branches. They took a seat at the feet of a huddle of larger trees. Bill hooked Kong’s leash to a branch, then shuffled over closer to Christina. They both leaned back on a trunk, and looked up through the crisscross of branches at the bits of clear blue sky etched between them.
“It’s amazing,” said Christina. “I’m so glad I came. I knew this was the right decision.”
“Was there ever any question?” said Bill.
Christina smiled and looked down at the ground. “A big move is always scary,” she said. “But I’m here now, and I’m not scared at all.” She kissed him, and his lips felt warm and smooth, and then she kissed him again and she felt an urgent burn between her legs. She put one hand around his neck and another on his chest and began to kiss him quickly and furiously. She moved her hand from his chest to his shorts. “Let’s do it right here,” she said.
“Here?” Bill said, and he laughed nervously. “Probably an unwise idea. There’s poison oak everywhere.”
“I don’t see any. Come on, Bill.” She undid his fly, reached her hand inside.
“I can’t right now,” he said. His smiled right through Christina. “I’m tired from the walk.” He pulled her hand gently away from his shorts.
“Well, then do me,” she said. She stood and, back slightly bent, dropped her shorts. “At least make me feel good.” She flattened herself against the trunk of a tree, then lowered herself to the ground. Nearby Kong lay patiently, keeping a watchful eye for mountain lions.
ANOTHER SENATOR had an affair, surprise, surprise, thought Christina as she watched Bill pack for his trip. Every time one of these guys got busted—this time a Florida senator with interests in the aviation industry, who had audaciously kept an apartment in D.C. for his mistress, a former waitress in a steak house popular with the Republican crowd—the talk shows trudged out Bill as an expert in masculinity and power. Christina slumped on Bill’s bed, chin resting on chest. His schedule had never bothered her in the past, but that was before this summer, before she had been high up on the mountain, in the woods, alone with him and his dog.
Ah yes, the dog. She would be taking care of Kong while Bill was gone. At breakfast she had received typewritten instructions, detailing his food and exercise schedule. She reread it now, stopping at the final line: “Kong is at his happiest guarding something, so let him watch over you!”
Christina read the sentence out loud. “What does that mean exactly?”
“Just that he’ll stick by your side if you let him. It’s quite sweet actually. You could probably just let him sit outside your office. I shouldn’t think he’ll bother you at all. He just likes to keep an eye on things.”
“I don’t want him watching me when I do work. Or yoga.” This seemed an obvious point to Christina. The dog was not to go near her unsupervised any more than necessary. Plus, she was in no mood to be watched all day. Wasn’t it enough that Bill, as he had reported to her last week, could see the back of her head as she worked?